Today I decided to reattempt creating smoke in 3DS (following on from last years somewhat disastrous attempt in which smoke came out of the cannon) by using the particle systems tool. From there I selected the super spray. I then went into the modify tab and changed certain settings. I adjusted the speed at which the particles generate to 16, as well as changing the particles from ticks to mesh. Using the mesh setting allowed me set the mesh to facing and apply a smokey material to the faces.
For the material I used the 3DS Max smoke material, however this did not look realistic enough, I copied over the image of the smoke from there into Photoshop. I then used the paint brush tool to paint black around the edges of the image. I then added the material to the opacity map in the material editor.
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| Smoke Material |
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I rendered the image and was satisfied with the result. I then added the smoke to a Bomb (the same one used to explode the shed and the plane) and adjusted the start time to start after the plane had exploded.I also added further items from the Space Warp section, I went into the forces menu and added wind and drag to the smoke, this slightly adjusted the way in which the smoke blew and it effected the way it reacted. (The higher the wind setting the more the smoke was angled, after a bit of trial and error I found it was best to put the wind strength at 0.72) This is the end result:
In last year's module, 3D Modelling and Animation, I applied a very basic super spray to my da Vinci tank to create smoke after one of the cannons had been used, I want to expand this limited and basic knowledge on particle systems.. I am to do this by working with Jan to create realistic looking explosions, smoke and fire. I also want to learn how to create realistic water using a variety of techniques such as mentalray, raytrace and adding various maps to materials. I know of the various different preset water that already exists within the program. The realistic looking water created will be used in various scenes within the animation, this is vital as there will be many components that will rely on water, such as boats, maps and islands. I will animate the water to make small waves and I will also try and animate the object being placed in the water to make it bob a little. I will also be using various new techniques from the space warps section of 3DS max. After following tutorial and applying those tutorials to objects I have been able to create realistic looking explosions, this means that the object being blown up breaks into various different pieces. This will be vital to the group work as there will be many explosions within the animation. This new technique is not restricted to explosions, I have been trailing a water system that requires reactor to work. This is something that I am finding difficult to use as it is very temperamental. I have also been able to use the system to add wind and drag to a particle system.
Following the explosion of the plane, I have now improved the explosion of the shed, I did this by decreasing the fragment size from 150 to 2. This has resulted in the shed exploding into millions of pieces.
Before:
After:
Using the space warp tool set, I have found an easy way to create small explosions. I created a small plane and added a basic material to it. I then used the preset explosion found in the geometric/deformable set. I bound the explosion to the plane and watched as the space warp broke the plane into 5 pieces. Settings allow the bomb to explode the plane into more by increasing the fragment size. Other items that can be changed are the strength of the bomb, the spin, detonation (this allows the user to pick on which frame they want the bomb to detonate), speed and chaos.
I have attempted to blow up the shed that was created previously, however it didn't work as well as the plane, I will investigate into this further and discover a better method to destroy more solid and 3D objects.
Today's task was to create a building using a low poly modelling technique. This meant starting off with a box and creating a building from it. This was then converted into an editable poly which allowed me to select the edges of the box. Using the ring tool was especially helpful when selecting all the edges, as I'd only have to select one and the ring function would select the rest for me. I then used new technique to create more polygons on the box by using the connect tool. This enabled me to specify the width of the new polygon being create as well as the are in which it would be places. This was extremely useful when it came to placing and creating the polygons for the door and the windows. Once I was happy with the placement of the new polygon I used the same method to create a smaller polygon for the door. I then used extrude and bevel tools to create a door frame and the door. I used the same method to create the two windows.
Following on with my success at creating a realistic wave movement in the water I thought I would challenge myself. I decided to create something else that could be useful to the group and the project. I decided to try and create a ripple effect on the water. With the help of this tutorial (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa6udmVKGn8&feature=related) and a few hours this is that I managed to create:
Using various different components and of course my favourite mental ray materials I have managed to create a realistic ripple, although the timing of the ball and ripples could be a bit more synchronised (it looked better in 3DS then it did rendered). I used a variety of new tools, such as the space warps and the bind to space warp tool. I clicked onto the geometric/deformable menu and chose ripple. I then used the bind to space warp tool to add the ripple effect to the plane. I was then able to adjust the settings of the ripple through the modify tab. I then added a ball and quickly used the auto key to animate the ripple and ball.
So today, I thought I would try and attempt to create some relatively realistic looking water, simple enough right? There is a preset for water under the mental ray materials. But I wanted to challenge myself further. I wanted to make the water look like it was moving. I started off by creating a plane and assigning the pre-made water material to this plane. I then converted the plane into an editable poly and moved down the modifier list until I found the noise setting. I adjusted the parameters within the noise setting, however I only adjusted them on the Y axis as this would create more realistic wave movement. I then added a plane underneath the newly created water and added some omni lights to emphasis the movement. I then rendered the scene and this is the result:
I used this tutorial from youtube to aid me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzzz48iYwUk
